DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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19 straight top tens vault Tim McCreadie to Lucas championship lead | Daily 7-19-2022

On the show today we'll spotlight Tim McCreadie's consistency, touch on your Brent Marks hot take reactions, and double back to a wild IRA weekend. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, July 19th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

Interesting mix of comments and reactions to my Brent Marks hot take yesterday. Some agreed, some did not. I love those of you that think I'm a World of Outlaws homer. That makes my day. I've actually been a Brent Marks fan a long time. He was one of our very early interviews on Open Red back in 2016 long before he was a full timer even with the series. Episode 18 I believe, if you want to go back and listen to that one. And Brent's crew chief is Heath Moyle, who was a past guest on both my Conversations show, and he was on the original crew guys episode of Open Red. I did get a text from Heath yesterday about my show, which I thought was great. He did point out that they backed up in the heat race earlier in the week because they had an engine go sour. That's good info. At the end of the day though, I wasn't hating on Brent or their performance. They were fast when it mattered. And you can only play the hand you are dealt, and in the case of the Kings Royal, it's heat race inversions and one qualifying session. I'm not taking anything away from them. Just for some numbers, because a few of you brought it up. Since the 2017 season, only Donny Schatz and Logan Schuchart have gained more positions come feature time than Brent Marks has. Schatz is plus 966, Schuchart plus 776, and Marks is plus 760. In 304 Outlaw appearances, he finished better than he started in 183 of them, right at 60%. Qualifying though continues to be a tough thing for the Myerstown Missile. For comparison, since 2017, David Gravel is the best full timer in average qualifying position at 6.74, with 71 quick times. Over that same span, Marks' average time trial position is 14.57, with just two quick times. He's been better this season and in 2021, moving into the 12's, but there is still a ton of room for improvement. On an inversion night though, like the Royal, and like the Knoxville Nationals will be, it's not necessarily a bad thing to be down the order in qualifying. Drivers will tell you they don't sandbag on those nights, but its not an opinion that being towards the top is not helpful. Either way, interesting thought experiment and thanks for the feedback, even if you disagreed.

Moving on...

It's going to be a busy week across the country on dirt tracks, and there is plenty to get into tonight, especially if you're a late model fan. The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series is headed to Huset's Speedway tonight for the first time ever, and late models on bullrings is never a bad thing. Tonight's show is $10,000 to win, the series will have Wednesday off, and then Thursday is night one at I-80 Speedway leading into the Silver Dollar Nationals. Since this is the series debut at Huset's, I have no Lucas races in the dirtrackr.com analytics database for this event. And it appears as though the World of Outlaws Late Models have never raced there either. So no data to go off of for tonight. According to Dirt on Dirt, this is just the 11th late model race at the track since 1980. The dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula is going with points leader Tim McCreadie tonight, and I'll roll with that as well. If you want to know how TMac has gotten to the points lead in the last few weeks, look no further than their consistency. They won at 34 Raceway on May 22nd, and followed that up with a 17th at Wheatland on May 27th. But since then, they have ripped off 19 straight top ten finishes, with 11 being top five runs as well. It's the current longest active top ten streak in the country for the major series. David Gravel is the next closest with the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars at 11 straight. McCreadie is actually just a tick off pace from last year in terms of win percentage and top five percentage, but he's finishing top ten more often, and his average finish is just a tiny tick better. 6.108 versus 6.111 from 2021. That's the type of consistency that won McCreadie the title last year, and the type of consistency we normally have come to expect from Brandon Sheppard. Interestingly, McCreadie's feature start is a full position worse from a year ago, but he's passing more cars coming feature time. As for BShepp, the Rocket team had issues at Deer Creek with that crash, then had that engine go south at I-70 while leading late, but they did bounce back at Tri-City and Lucas Oil with finishes of 5th and 3rd. They will have to keep that up just to stay in the fight with the 39 going forward. I think he and Ricky Thornton Jr. would need to rip off some wins to close this thing back up. Besides the Lucas regulars, it sounds like we'll get a lot of the MLRA guys also in attendance tonight, with names like Johnny Scott, Mason Oberkramer and others expected to race. This one will be live on Flo tonight. The weather looks good, warm, but good.

Also on the Flo tonight, you can check out round four of the Southern Nationals late model series. Cory Hedgecock and Dale McDowell have won the first three races, with McDowell leading the points coming into tonight at I-75 Raceway. Other names we should see include Ashton Winger, Ross Bailes, Cody Overton, and Jensen Ford. Following tonight, the 12 race series heads to Senoia on Thursday.

I had a few of you bring up the IRA racing from the weekend, so I wanted to double back and talk about the racing at River Cities from the weekend. I hadn't watched the shows, but there was some great action there over the two nights. Friday went to Austin Pierce and Saturday was an absolute barn burner with Jake Blackhurst eventually coming out on top. Jade Hastings led both races late in the going, but ended up second on Friday and third on Saturday. The finale on Saturday turned into a battle between Hastings and Thomas Kennedy, but on the final lap, Blackhurst ripped the top in three and four and beat both guys back to the line, to the point that the announcer thought Kennedy won. But Blackhurst's run took him from third to the lead right at the line. If you haven't watched it, the replays are available over on Flo. The IRA points battle remains tight with Blackhurst leading Jake Neuman and Jordan Goldesberry. The two chasers are only 23 and 24 points back respectively. The 410 series is back this weekend with stops at Outagamie and Wilmot.

There are seven shows on the streaming schedule today. FloRacing has the Lucas late models from Huset's, the Southern Nationals from I-75, and Flo 24/7. XR's Northern Storm continues tonight at Grand Rapids on XR+, The Cushion has micros from Bridgeport's Spirit Speedway, and there is racing at Rapid Speedway and Antioch on Speed Sport. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, head over to dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

That's it for the show today, have a good Tuesday. If you have thoughts about the topics on today's show, leave them in the comments below or tweet at me.

Thanks everybody for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!